Promise
by Uphill Both Ways
Summary: Maybe Namie shouldn't have given Izaya her word. IzaNami.


"_One more thing…" Izaya spoke softly, halting in his chair's spin and moving his gaze to the frustrated woman in front of him. He was laying out the ground rules for Namie's employment, and was finally wrapping up._

"_What?" Namie demanded, furrowing her brows and desiring escape from the irritating brunette as fast as possible. The smirk returned to her new employer's face; "Just don't fall for me." Namie scoffed with disgust, and stalked away from Izaya while snapping a quick "Don't flatter yourself, won't happen," in reply. _

_The rules of the game were set before Namie knew what she had gotten herself into._

* * *

Namie collected the array of documents splayed over the desk top, tapping them against the surface to make a neat stack in her hands. The office was quiet, sunlight streaming in through the tall windows behind her boss's desk. '_Such a mess_…' The woman thought, frowning and picking up the pens scattered across the desk, placing them in the white mug next to the heated metal of a humming computer. Namie rolled her eyes, thinking '_Does he _really_ need to leave them turned on? Fire hazard. Whatever, not my problem._' Though a flutter of worry pricked at her spine as she organized the papers into the assorted folders in the informant's bookshelf.

The brunette woman sighed, sliding her fingers lazily over the dusty shelf. The man was really such a pain, giving her either completely mundane jobs or utterly ridiculous challenges. Organizing the man's documents could be either, sometimes it was as simple as alphabetizing something. But, things never _really_ were simple with Izaya. Alphabetizing or adding to the information broker's endless files in his strange coding could take minutes or _days_.

Not to mention, he _always_ treated her like a source of entertainment. He drank amusement from their banters, from asking her to do housewife chores and watching her reactions to his arrogance, and _especially_ from her infatuation with Seiji, which he used against her frequently. She knew she was meant to hate him for things like that, and for a short while, Namie supposed she did.

She wouldn't tell him that she no longer desired her brother.

She wouldn't tell him, because for some strange reason, she worried that he may stop needing her, even for entertainment. She wouldn't admit that she secretly enjoyed his taunts and mind games, because she wouldn't even admit it to herself. She wouldn't say that she liked working for him because they were horrifyingly similar in more ways than one, and she _definitely_ wouldn't confess the thrill she got when locked in a burning psychological battle with the bastard.

He did have his moments though, Izaya, where Namie could actually _see_ his humanity and _cherish_ it, wishing for it to last longer. Moments where she felt an odd fondness for the enigmatic man, moments when his smile was genuine or his words innocent. It could be when he was so immersed in his work or joy that he didn't notice, when he would unconsciously mention his sisters, or even when Namie managed to have a normal conversation with him. Izaya also stuck to his word; when she asked for information about her brother he always delivered, even if it was in his own twisted way. He never contorted his riddles out of her realm of understanding and Namie knew it was intentional. Because somewhere, she knew, he had his own soft spot for his employee even if it was only because she was an escape from utter loneliness.

Namie trudged up the sleek modern staircase, numb in thought while silence encased the apartment with the exception of the city life outside the walls. She moved slowly from room to room of the upper apartment complex, rearranging the objects that Izaya had instructed her to in a mental list. Namie brushed by the open door to the man's smaller, dimmer office area, noticing something that caught her eye. She ghosted through the door, sticking close to the frame as she stared blankly at the man in front of her.

Izaya was slouched against the small, cluttered desk, arms crossed on the surface of an open book and his head resting in them. His eyes were closed, reading glasses askew, and his slow breathing told Namie that he had fallen asleep there. The rest of the desk had piles of books, some open some closed, covering it along with paper with meaningless (at least to Namie) scrawl on them. The walls themselves were practically invisible, hidden behind more clutter of books and files and paper, of all different languages and symbols that Namie didn't care to understand.

In that spot, as weak sunlight struggled to filter through the dusty curtains beside the informant and caressed his face dimly among towering mythology and legends in ink and leather, the brunette man looked hopelessly human. So _small_ compared to the raging war of the world surrounding him at that moment, and Namie couldn't help but wonder if he knew what he had gotten himself into. If he had truly thought any of this out.

In that moment, Namie saw the little boy who lived a mundane routine life and yearned for something bigger. She saw the little boy who threw caution to the wind and took steps no one else dared to. She saw a lonely man, and she wondered if she and he were really different at all.

As dust floated in the humid air between Namie and Izaya's distance, Namie remembered the first day she began work for the informant. He had taunted her, even before she agreed to be his subordinate, and it had fueled her anger like nothing before.

Looking back she felt as though she understood his actions a bit more. "_Just don't fall for me_," the man with an irritating smirk had said. "_Won't happen_," Namie had blindly pledged, determined to hate Izaya to the bitter end, and feeling like she could.

Looking back, Namie regretted making that promise.

* * *

**A/N: Though I'm not too sure about the way this turned out, I definitely think IzaNami needs more love.**

**Hate it? Like it? Review it?**


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